Airfoil blades of turbine engines are subject to widely cyclic temperature conditions, often ranging to and exceeding 1600° F., resulting in expansions and contractions of parts, including both radial and axial displacements of the rotors. Although continuing advances in materials have enabled uses of stronger composite materials involving lower mass and requiring less physical space, there remains room for improvements.
Within a turbine engine environment, the temperature variation is compounded by a need to effectively retain the parts together radially at high rotating speeds which stress the parts, particularly when subject to high pressure differentials. Such retention of parts issue may be exacerbated when the parts are formed of different materials, particularly combinations of metallic and composite materials.
Thus, maintaining rotor integrity within the environment of a gas turbine engine may present a significant challenge to the extent that radially oriented tensile loads on airfoil blades of high-speed rotors are subject to extreme temperature and pressure fluctuations. In any event, improved bladed airfoil securement systems will permit greater uses of construction materials having lower mass, thus permitting use of thinner central body cross-sections for increasing, hence optimizing, any given self-sustaining radius of the rotor.